The Sultai Brood: Reclaim the Damned

Commander / EDH BUG (Sultai)

Temur_Frontier

Creature (33)

• 1x Boneyard Wurm
• 1x Champion of Wits
• 1x Doom Whisperer
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Genesis
• 1x Hedron Crab
• 1x Hermit Druid
• 1x Izoni, Thousand-Eyed
• 1x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip
• 1x Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
• 1x Kagha, Shadow Archdruid
• 1x Lazav, the Multifarious
• 1x Muldrotha, the Gravetide
• 1x Nyx Weaver
• 1x Old Rutstein
• 1x Old Stickfingers
• 1x Priest of Forgotten Gods
• 1x Profaner of the Dead
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Shigeki, Jukai Visionary
• 1x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
• 1x Sivriss, Nightmare Speaker
• 1x Skull Prophet
• 1x Skullwinder
• 1x Splinterfright
• 1x Taigam, Sidisi's Hand
• 1x Torrent Elemental
• 1x Underrealm Lich
• 1x Whisper, Blood Liturgist
• 1x Wonder
• 1x World Shaper
• 1x Zellix, Sanity Flayer

Sorcery (13)

• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Damnable Pact
• 1x Dread Return
• 1x Far Wanderings
• 1x Fascination
• 1x Gaze of Granite
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Splendid Reclamation
• 1x Squirming Emergence
• 1x Terror Tide
• 1x Treasured Find
• 1x Victimize
• 1x Villainous Wealth

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Cemetery Tampering
• 1x Deadbridge Chant
• 1x Palace Siege
• 1x Path of Discovery
• 1x Sultai Ascendancy
• 1x The Mending of Dominaria

Instant (6)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Dig Through Time
• 1x Drown in Dreams
• 1x Epiphany at the Drownyard
• 1x Fact or Fiction
• 1x Sultai Charm

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Garruk, Apex Predator

Commander (1)

Land (36)

• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dismal Backwater
• 9x Forest
• 1x Foul Orchard
• 8x Island
• 1x Opulent Palace
• 10x Swamp
• 1x Temple of Deceit
• 1x Temple of Malady
• 1x Temple of Mystery
• 1x Thornwood Falls
• 1x Westvale Abbey  ^Flip

Artifact (3)

• 1x Altar of Dementia
• 1x Perpetual Timepiece
• 1x Sol Ring

---

The Tarkir Project

This deck is part of a series of flavor-focused decks built around the plane of Tarkir. The goal is to balance flavor, power, and fun as much as possible for each deck, bringing the associated clans to life while still being playable. Here are the rough guidelines for this project, where each deck should:

• Use a commander that is from the associated clan, ideally one of the Khans for the clan.
• Include as many cards associated with the given clan as possible; it does not matter if they are specifically from the Tarkir block. Any card, whether it was from the block or some anthology, counts as long as it clearly depicts the clan in question (this includes the Dragons of Tarkir clan counterpart as they are similar enough). Realistically, the target goal is roughly around 15 flavor cards per deck.
• The deck's overall playstyle should mirror the original vision of the clan's tactics as they were represented in the Tarkir block. I personally value this slightly more than number of flavor cards used.

You can check out the other decks in this series as they are listed on the side bar of this page and on my profile.

Who were the Sultai Brood?

Commander Choice

As for most of these decks, there was really only a choice between two different commanders: the khans Sidisi, Brood Tyrant and Tasigur, the Golden Fang. While Tasigur is a decent toolbox commander for any Sultai build, he works best at the helm of a combo deck with a more restrictive graveyard. On the other hand, Sidisi is a powerhouse for self-mill as she fills up the grave on her own and then generates value off of that mill. She is easily one of the best self-mill commanders out there, let alone from the Sultai clan, so the choice was pretty clear.

Sultai Flavor

Sultai has a decent amount of options for flavor, given that many of those cards are based around graveyard shenanigans. Barring lands and cards which could pass for being part of the Sultai clan (stuff like Shigeki, Jukai Visionary and Sivriss, Nightmare Speaker are pretty Sultai-like, but do not count because they are not actually Sultai), here is a list of the Sultai flavor cards used in the build:

Sultai Playstyle & Power Level

The Sultai clan from the Tarkir block relied heavily on graveyard plays, the idea being that the Sultai did not throw out their dead, but merely repurposed them. That is really the only governing principle for the deck's playstyle. Thus, the deck is a heavy self-mill deck that tries to put as many creatures in the grave as possible in order to generate zombie tokens and dig through the library for stronger answers and win conditions. Playing this deck certainly provides the feeling of commanding an army of the living and the dead, all while deceiving one's opponents about what is truly the biggest threat in the deck.

As for the deck's power level, as with all the decks in this series, the goal was to maintain a midrange battlecruiser style with a clear focus that was decently fast and well supported by resources such as draw and ramp. Essentially, these decks should perform well in your average meta, not too casual and certainly not competitive. Sultai is already a strong color combo, and Sidisi, Brood Tyrant is a competitive-level commander, so there is no concern about the deck being too weak. The deck used to feature zombie tribal elements, but that felt far too strong for the other decks to handle, so those have been thrown out. However, the Sultai do have a very glaring vulnerability in the form of graveyard hate, and this build is not as fast as others to outpace any grave hate strategies.

Win Conditions

The deck's main focus is swarming the board with creatures and Sidisi, Brood Tyrant's zombie tokens. There are a couple of cards that aid this strategy by allowing these zombies to swing through: Profaner of the Dead, Torrent Elemental, and Wonder. There are a few cards that also set Sidisi into overdrive with cards like Doom Whisperer (merely set one creature into the grave for each time the ability is activated and the deck can amass a lot of zombies quickly) and Path of Discovery (this card turns one Sidisi proc into several, potentially, by always putting the card on top into the grave; this creates a new zombie which will then explore, and so on).

Outside of the straightforward go-wide strategy, the deck features more interesting solutions to closing out the game. Hedron Crab+World Shaper/Scapeshift/The Mending of Dominaria/Splendid Reclamation can trigger enough landfall procs to mill out one or two players, and Altar of Dementia can aid in this endeavor. Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord can deal massive damage when repeatedly sacrificing creatures like Boneyard Wurm.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	11 months
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	10 - 0 Mythic Rares 33 - 0 Rares 23 - 0 Uncommons 5 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.41
Tokens	Beast 3/3 B, Beast 3/3 G, Blood, Champion of Wits 4/4 B, Emblem Garruk, Apex Predator, Emblem Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Horror, Human Cleric 1/1 BW, Insect 1/1 BG, Insect 1/1 G, Treasure, Zombie 2/2 B